Vivat Sport, Vivat Friendship, Vivat Students! was the motto of the sports festival of TSU and TPU, which was held on the weekend for the 4,000 freshmen. For the first time the two leading universities of Tomsk have teamed up to show the possibilities of collaboration.

According to TSU’s Rector Eduard Galazhinsky, this event will become a new tradition for the partner universities, the experience of creating an university-wide environment that should set the tone in the university city.

- The combination of two such complementary universities, sometimes living in the mode of competition, but more in collaboration, give an impulse to the development of the entire system of education and science. And Tomsk is a place where we truly believe in the potential of a person. You have entered the universities that provide maximum opportunities for your development, - said the Rector in his welcome speech.

- I wish you to successfully build your lives, to find new friends here, a soulmate, find a professional sense, and be happy to come back to Tomsk, where you will always be loved and welcome. But it will be later,today everything is just beginning. I congratulate you on joining the friendly family of the best students of Tomsk universities! - said Eduard Galazhinsky.

Columns of TSU and TPU athletes were welcomed by the rectors, Eduard Galazhinsky and Petr Chubik.

- Today, we are all members of a unique event: for the first time in the history of our two universities, we are conducting a joint Day of the Freshman - said Petr Chubik, rector of TPU. - TPU and TSU are universities, neighbors, partners, and the oldest universities in the Asian part of the country, both of which are research universities, members of the 5-100 project, and in the top 400 universities in the world. An alloy of humanities scholars and engineers, physicists and poets - what could be better for breakthrough discoveries in science?

Seven teams from each university competed in 11 disciplines: football, lifting weights, darts, chin-ups, push-ups and shoulder dip on the parallel bars, jumping from a place and jumping rope, shuttle run, throwing the ball, and mass-wrestling (a traditional Yakut sport). The winners in each sport were determined in the individual standings. The best athletes were awarded diplomas and medals.